


Context Clues

by Anonymous



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fisting, Beta/Omega, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Scenting, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-08 06:44:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21471745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Peter is crying.Those had been FRIDAY's exact words, and the reason Tony had run upstairs and bypassed the privacy lock on the kid's door.Context is kind of everything.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 72
Kudos: 1003
Collections: Mind The Age Gap Flash Fic Prompt Meme, is this thing (an)on?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [agegapflashficpromptmeme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/agegapflashficpromptmeme) collection. 

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Tony Stark is a beta, and he's not fooling himself. He knows that Peter will eventually get bored of him and go looking for a real alpha, but that doesn't mean Tony won't try to give Peter the best heats he could've dreamed. Cue fisting-as-sub-for-knotting, or alternatively all the sex toys to make up for the fact that Tony can't give Peter a real knot.

_Peter is crying_.

Those had been FRIDAY's exact words, and the reason Tony had run upstairs and bypassed the privacy lock on the kid's door.

Context is kind of everything.

Because FRIDAY had neglected to mention that Peter was crying because he was _in heat_. 'Naked on the bed, sweating and writhing with the sheets kicked off' – kind of heat.

“A heads-up would've been nice,” Tony mutters, unable to tear his eyes away.

“You asked if Peter was alright. He's otherwise perfectly healthy.”

Okay that – made a kind of sense. Mostly. Yes, Tony had asked if Peter was alright, when the kid hadn't come down to the lab by mid-afternoon. And yes, heat was a perfectly natural biological function, so FRIDAY probably wouldn't have registered that alone as anything to report.

It's definitely something Tony could've gone without seeing first-hand, though. Peter is twisted around with three fingers shoved inside himself, hole dripping with slick, making these little hurt noises with every thrust.

If Tony were an alpha they'd be in real trouble right about now. Then again, if Tony were an alpha, he'd have the biological means to help Peter through this. Tony shakes his head. No, that wouldn't be a solution either. The kid must be out of his mind right now, there's no way it would be better if both of them were incapacitated by hormones.

Still though, that leaves Tony standing in a bedroom with a heat-sick omega and no ready solution. He looks around the room – if Peter knew his heat was coming on, surely he would've brought some... supplies.

“Kid? Hey, Pete?”

Peter moans.

“I know, kid, I know. But I need to know if you brought stuff with you.”

Peter mumbles something into the pillow, then turns his head towards the door. Jesus, the kid looks rough. He blinks uncomprehendingly up at Tony a couple of times before his expression clears slightly. Then eyes his eyes go wide.

“Mr. Stark? Oh my god. What – what are you doing here?”

A very good question.

“FRIDAY said you needed a little help.” There, that's close enough to the truth, right? “I need you to try to focus – supplies, did you bring any with you this weekend?”

“Supplies?”

Tony flounders for a brief moment. He waves a hand around. “Toys. To help you through.”

Peter shakes his head. “No, I don't... what, wait, why would I have that kind of stuff?”

Why. Is the kid serious right now? _Why?_

An alarming possibility rises to the forefront of Tony's thoughts. Because there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Peter might have come to the compound with his heat imminent and no supplies.

If he didn't know it was coming.

Tony doesn't exactly have much experience with omegas, outside of a few romps back in his somewhat-less responsible days, but he does know that Peter isn't totally outside the age range for a first presentation. Little bit of a late bloomer, to be sure, but not outside the realm of possibility.

Tony steps closer to the bed, crouching down so he's eye-level with Peter.

“Kid, is this your first heat?”

Peter's expression crumples and he shoves his face back into the pillow.

“Hey, hey no it's alright. We're gonna take care of this kid, c'mon, look at who you're talking to. We got this. I just need to know what I'm dealing with here.”

Against his better judgement, Tony reaches out and strokes a hand through Peter's hair. Damn, the kid really is burning up.

“Hey FRI, lower the temp a bunch of degrees for me. Fast.”

The HVAC vents kick on at full blast, and Peter breathes an obvious sigh of relief.

“Tell me what you need, Pete.”

“I need... I need more. It's not _enough,_” he whines, arching his back and thrusting his fingers in deeper. At some point he must've added another one, because he's in all the way up to the knuckle now. “Mr. Stark, it hurts. Please. Please, I need - ”

Tony runs a quick mental inventory. Yeah, he has toys of own upstairs, but nothing that's going to be anywhere near enough to satisfy an omega in heat. He could make something, but that would mean leaving Peter alone, and would probably take too long anyway.

The kid needs some kind of release, and sooner rather than later.

Which leaves them with the supplies at hand, as it were.

Tony takes off his watch.

“Peter.” No response.

“Peter, I need you to look at me for a second.”

Peter only half turns, looking up at Tony with one bleary eye. Close enough.

“Are you okay with me touching you?” Tony asks.

“Okay. Very okay.”

It's cold comfort at best. Peter would probably give consent to a Chitauri, under the circumstances. Peter's hair is curling and damp with sweat as Tony cards his fingers through it.

“Okay. Take your fingers out, sweetheart. Let me help.”

Peter pulls his fingers out with a whine, but Tony doesn't let him wait long before he's shoving his own fingers inside. Peter is dripping with slick and still burning hot. He's tighter than Tony would expect from an omega in full heat. Then again, of course he is. It's his first heat.

Tony shoves the thought away. He can browbeat himself about it later, all the multitude of ways he's failing Peter by not making this better, easier for him. Right now he needs to focus.

Peter has rolled fully onto his stomach now, chest down against the mattress and ass shoved up in the air, thrusting back onto Tony's fingers.

“More, more please more - ” Peter is begging, barely stopping for breath.

“Okay, okay. Don't worry I've got you.”

Tony pulls out and tucks his thumb in alongside his other fingers, then presses back inside. Peter moans and pushes backwards, and before Tony knows it the full width of his hand is inside, the rim of Peter's hole clenching around his wrist.

“Jesus, kid,” Tony breathes.

But Peter isn't paying attention at all. The begging has devolved into unintelligible moaning, and the extra stimulation seems to have tipped Peter right over the edge. Thick spurts of come paint the fitted sheet beneath him. Peter's thighs tremble, then give out, sinking back down to the mattress.

Tony hadn't exactly thought through to this point.

As far as Peter's body was concerned, he has happily knotted and would remain that way for the next twenty or thirty minutes.

Which means Tony might as well get comfortable. It takes some maneuvering, but he manages to get himself seated on the bed, Peter stretched out over his lap. Tony has to clench and unclench his hand periodically to work out the cramping, which inevitably causes Peter to make sleepy-sounding happy noises and shift around, but otherwise it's not so bad.

In the meantime, though -

“FRIDAY, pull up schematics for the top rated omega heat aids. Let's see what we can do.”

Working one-handed isn't easy, but it's better than sitting in silence for the next half hour with one fist buried inside his barely-legal mentee.

*

Peter comes three more times before he's finally tapped out for the night, and for his own part Tony thinks he may have developed the world's fastest case of repetitive stress injury, even after he switches hands. He'd bump Peter's heat aids up a few spots on the project priority list, except they're already sitting pretty right at number one.

Tony rolls out the aches in his wrists and manages to untangle himself from Peter's legs after some effort. They're both sweaty, sticky messes – Peter moreso than Tony, although Tony's relative cleanness isn't saying much.

He wipes the kid down with a damp washcloth. The fitted sheet is a lost cause, but Tony doesn't have the stamina to shift Peter around enough to change it anyway. He pulls the flat sheet off the floor and drapes it back over the kid.

“Keep an eye on him for me, FRI, okay?” he whispers as he shuts the door.

“Will do, boss.”

*

Tired as he feels, Tony doesn't go to sleep that night. Instead he prints five custom toys for Peter, figuring the kid will probably need to experiment a bit before he can figure out what he likes best. On that logic and his fourth cup of coffee, he designs three more. Then another two.

Peter is still sleeping. Tony asks FRIDAY to check in every so often – not that he wants to spy on the kid, but just in case he needs water or... something.

Peter does finally emerge from his room late the next morning, red-faced and refusing to meet Tony's eyes when they bump into each other in the kitchen.

“Hungry?” Tony guesses.

“Um. Starving, yeah.”

“Good, 'cause I got moo shu pork coming in about ten minutes. That and a bunch of other stuff.”

“Awesome. Thanks.”

Usually Tony doesn't have to worry about filling the silence, not when Peter's around. It's unsettling, to say the least.

“So, how're we feeling?”

“Good. I mean, a lot better. Thank you for, you know, helping me.”

On second thought, maybe the silence was better.

“Don't worry about it. Seriously Peter,” he reaches out to nudge the kid's chin up to look at him, “I was happy to help.”

“You were?”

Oops. Too far.

But there wasn't really a point in trying to pretend anyway. Peter was an omega. All the repetitive stress injuries and custom-made toys in the world would only keep him satisfied for so long; at least, until he found an alpha to do it for him.

“Of course. Anytime, kid.”

Peter grins like Tony just offered to let him take a lap around the compound in the Mark 50. He comes around the counter and wraps Tony up in a hug.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, his face pressed against Tony's chest.

Tony tips his head down and presses a kiss to Peter's temple. He figures, under the circumstances, he's allowed a few liberties.

*

He doesn't give the toys to Peter.

It doesn't seem like the right time, and it crosses all kinds of boundaries that Tony desperately needs to stay in place. Besides, surely there was some big dumb alpha in the kid's class that smelled amazing to supercharged omega hormones. Tony probably smells like nothing at all – just a big blank space and a dick that would never be able to knot him.

Things go back to normal. Mostly.

They're both a little more tactile, a little less aware of invading one another's space. Tony only notices because sometimes someone else will walk into the lab or the kitchen while they're working together and give Tony a very specific kind of look. A what-are-you-doing kind of look. Tony will look down and realize his arm is looped around the kid's waist, or Peter's hand is on his thigh.

So they're close. So what.

Tony is well aware that he's only acting the part of the stand in – he's just a convenient target for Peter's hormone-generated urges for affection, until someone more appropriate comes along.

Except, eleven weeks later Peter calls to ask if it's okay for him to come up to the compound for a visit. The request in itself isn't weird; but the call is. Peter comes up to the compound most weekends already anyway, he usually doesn't even bother to ask.

It takes FRIDAY flashing a not-so-subtle calendar on his screen for Tony to connect the dots.

Oh.

Well, of course the kid probably doesn't want to ride out his heat in a tiny apartment with his aunt right next door. He'll be more comfortable here. The prospect of decent sound insulation alone was probably worth it.

“Of course, kid. Come on up whenever. I'll be here,” Tony adds, somewhat unnecessarily.

*

Tony doesn't so much 'give' Peter the toys, which have been gathering dust in the lab for three months now, as he leaves them laid out on the kid's bed along with a sizable stash of gatorade and granola bars.

“Um,” Peter says.

“Wanted to be prepared this time.”

“Right. Of course.”

“Let me know if you have any questions about how to use them.”

“How to – wait. Aren't you gonna be the one to, like, use them on me?”

Tony had been holding something. Whatever it was clatters to the floor.

He'd just assumed after last time that Peter knew he was a sure bet, but as a last resort, not a first choice.

Tony gives him the only answer he can.

“If you want me to.”

“I definitely want you to. I don't even know what the purple one is supposed to do. Or where it goes, actually.”

“What kind of timeline are we looking at here? T-minus hours, minutes?”

“No idea. It uh, kind of took me by surprise last time. Like, I kept jerking off, but then it stopped helping, and then, uh, you saw what happened after that.”

Tony remembers. Vividly.

“You do know I'm a beta, right? Just so we're having this conversation while everyone's still lucid and neither of us is riding an oxytocin high.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that out last time, when you used your hand inside me instead of your dick.” Peter says and Tony nearly chokes. “It's not a problem, is it? Me being an omega?”

It will be. Somewhere down the line, it will be. For Peter though, not for Tony. Until then though, Tony will take what he can get – everything he can get.

“Not a problem at all, kid.”


	2. Chapter 2

Peter's nose wrinkles in disgust the second he opens the door to his room. “Oh god, what _is_ that?”

“What is what?” Tony has to ask, even though he already has a pretty good idea.

This definitely wasn't the reaction he'd been hoping for - he'd be lying if he said he hadn't been half expecting Peter to dive face first into the bed, rubbing himself around on it like a cat on a heavy dose of catnip.

In reality though, not so much. Peter isn't even stepping into the room. He's actually edging backwards away from the open door, ever so slightly.

“I don't know, I can't really place it. It's like a chem lab or something. It smells – cold?”

So, project note: the manufactured alpha pheromones are a bust.

“Better or worse than the unwashed meathead alphas in your class?”

“Worse. A lot worse,” Peter says, wincing. “Wait, is that what I'm smelling? You made alpha pheromones? ...for me?”

“Thought it might make the heat go a little easier. Maybe it'll smell different to you once you're really in it?”

Peter shakes his head. “No, I don't think so. It – honestly, Mr. Stark I really appreciate it and I'm sorry, but I don't think I can go in there. Is there another bedroom I can use for tonight? It's uh, it's pretty bad.”

Tony reaches out and closes the door. He lays one hand on the small of Peter's back, guiding him back down the hall.

“Not a problem. Not like there's any shortage of bedrooms around here. You can have your pick, kid.”

There's a pretty sizable guest room down the other end of the hall, with a good view of the lake. Peter will probably like it there, although it's a little farther away from Tony's quarters than Peter's usual room at the compound.

“Like yours?” Peter suggests, and Tony stops mid-stride.

“Mine?”

“I mean, wherever is fine,” Peter backtracks. “I just thought since we'd be together anyway, but it's totally okay if you don't want like, omega heat all over your bed. I know it gets, um, messy.”

“No. No, that makes perfect sense.”

Tony's hand slides up to the back of Peter's neck, giving it a quick squeeze. Peter seems to immediately relax, looking over at Tony with relief. They redirect towards Tony's personal quarters, which are a slightly separated from the rest of the compound. They also happen to have the best views. And the best soundproofing.

Peter drops his backpack in one corner and wanders inside. He closes his eyes and inhales, then exhales slowly, grinning.

“Better?” Tony asks, because hearing Peter say it out loud feels entirely necessary.

“So much better. Thanks Mr. Stark.”

_Suck on that, alpha pheromones, _Tony thinks. Well, okay – the fake ones, at least. It's not like they have a control group of real alpha pheromones to test against, unless Tony can convince Rhodes or Rogers to sweat some out for him, for science.

He tries to imagine how those conversations would go. Not all that well, he's guessing.

Besides, he's not sure he likes the thought of Peter being exposed to his friends' pheromones when the kid is mid-heat and impressionable, and that's assuming either of them would hypothetically be okay with the idea.

“FRIDAY, check body temp.”

“Half a degree above normal, boss.”

Peter turns towards Tony, rolling his eyes. “You could just ask, you know.”

“I did just ask.”

“Me, I mean.”

“Oh.” Oops. “So, how long do you think? You hungry, want to try to eat something?”

“No. I uh - ” Peter glances towards the bed, biting his lip. As if he needs permission. As if he wouldn't be welcome there any damn time he pleased, heat or no heat. Not that Tony has ever explicitly tried to make that clear. It's probably one of those things best kept to himself. For now, though -

“Make yourself comfortable,” Tony says, one eyebrow cocked, tipping his head towards the bed.

“Thanks.”

Tony turns to leave, giving the kid some privacy to strip down. Not that Tony hasn't seen it all before, but Peter is still slightly body-shy when he's not mid-heat, for some reason Tony hasn't been able to pinpoint. It's certainly not like Peter has anything to be ashamed of.

In any case, it'll be a couple of hours before the kid's heat really starts to kick in, and if history is anything to go by, Peter will be pretty achy and tired in the lead up. Tony might as well do what he can to get things ready.

“I'll grab the stuff from downstairs. Let FRI know if you need anything,” he offers as he closes the door behind him.

*

Tony washes the toys off in the sink on the assumption that Peter's spidey senses won't appreciate any lingering chemical smell from the fake pheromones. It only takes a few minutes, but by the time he makes it back upstairs Peter is already passed out cold, stretched out on his stomach under the comforter with his face buried in Tony's pillow.

Tony likes the sight of it a little too much. This is a temporary fix, he reminds himself. He doesn't get to keep Peter here, no matter how good his bare skin and soft curls of hair look against the sheets.

He sets the toys and other supplies down on the nightstand.

“FRIDAY, temp?” he asks, voice pitched low, although from the looks of things Peter wouldn't wake up if a herd of T-Rex stampeded through the room.

“Holding steady.”

“Lemme know when that changes.”

Tony hits the lab while he waits, although if he's honest with himself, he gets little to nothing actually accomplished over the next few hours. Peter's temp starts climbing steadily by eight o'clock, and Tony has to resist the urge to go check on him. Not that he thinks Peter would mind, he likely wouldn't even notice, but there are probably some boundaries that need to stay in place if Tony has the slightest hope of not cracking completely when Peter decides he doesn't need this kind of help anymore.

An alpha would have a biological imperative as a convenient excuse to go up there. Drawn to the scent by a kind of evolutionary trick, ensuring the alpha would be close at hand when the time came. A few studies have suggested knotting during the pre-heat can lessen the severity and length of the full heat overall, but not nearly enough to be conclusive, Tony knows. He's done a lot of reading in the past few months, very little of it actually helpful to their specific situation.

Most articles about heat sex only mentioned beta involvement in passing, as decent practice for a young omega, but ultimately inconsequential. Marginally better than nothing, in a situation where no acceptable alpha was on-hand. Even another omega was generally preferable – something about sympathetic pheromones and their (possible, unproven-as-yet) effect on omega hormone levels.

The point being, Tony doesn't have any biological imperative excuse for why he so desperately wants to go back upstairs to wait things out. He can't even believably claim it would be for Peter's sake; Peter will be too out of it to care either way, at least until his heat really started.

Tony's in the middle of not-so-successfully teaching DUM-E to solder (bound to be a disaster, but probably a mildly entertaining one, he figures. His lab is about due for a remodel anyway) when FRIDAY alerts him that Peter's temp is spiking.

Tony abandons what he's doing.

“Ah ah ah,” he yells back on his way out the door, “no soldering without adult supervision. U and FRIDAY don't count.”

He pauses in the doorway just long enough to clock DUM-E's arm lowering away from the iron.

Peter has already kicked the comforter and sheets off the bed by the time Tony makes it upstairs. He's not nearly as far gone as he'd been that first time, which is good – Tony doesn't ever want it to get to that point again, but he's still clearly in distress.

A few of the toys have been knocked off the nightstand. One even made it onto the bed before Peter must have given up due a general lack of fine motor skills. Dammit.

“Thought I told you to tell FRIDAY if you needed anything?”

Peter makes an unhappy sound. Right. Not the best time to reprimand the kid.

It's three strides over to the bed, and when Tony gets there he can feel the heat pouring off of the kid's skin. FRIDAY has already lowered the temp in the room by a few degrees to compensate, but there's only so much they can do on that front without risking hypothermia.

Peter is stretched out on his stomach, his hands bunched up in the sheets above his head. Tony notices that there's a small chunk of his solid-hardwood headboard missing. It probably shouldn't send a thrill through his chest the way it does, knowing that Peter could snap him in two with his bare hands and not even notice. 

That's another thought for later, though.

Tony trails one hand down Peter's back, hoping to calm the kid down a bit while he grabs the previously discarded toy off the mattress. The moan Peter lets out as Tony pushes it inside makes Tony's own throat go dry with want. This isn't about him - omega heat cycles impacted all kinds of crazy (and frankly, terrifying) things stretching way beyond the actual heat itself. A particularly rough or unsatisfactory one could literally lower Pete's serotonin and dopamine levels by a couple of percentage points, and who the hell knows what kind of impact that could have on an already juiced-up metabolism.

With the toy buried inside him, Peter seems to have re-discovered the power of speech.

Well, sort of.

“M-more, need more, _please,_” he begs, the words muffled by the way his face is half-pressed into one of the remaining pillows.

Tony adjusts positions, switching hands so he can thrust the toy deeper inside in long, punishing strokes. Peter pushes up on his knees, canting his hips back and meeting each thrust with an impressive amount of coordination, considering.

Peter's back is arched to what would probably be an impossible degree for anyone else, and his thighs are stretched wide apart, putting his pretty pink cock on display. It's fully hard, leaving a streak of precum along the taut skin of his stomach with every buck of his hips.

Tony can't figure out if he's the luckiest bastard alive or the unluckiest, but either way he has a front row seat to the best view in the house when Peter comes; thick spurts of it splattering against his stomach and dripping onto the sheets below, Peter's pink hole stretched wide around the toy.

Tony thumbs a smooth, cleverly designed switch on the base of the toy to gradually expand the fake knot and Peter yelps, his toes curling and his cock lets out one more, smaller spurt of come.

Tony flips the switch to stop the knot expanding. “Too much?”

Peter doesn't reply right away, but he does roll his head back and forth against the pillow.

“Nn-”

“More?” Tony isn't actually sure how much more the knot can expand, actually. The toy is designed to get fairly large, but it's impossible to tell how close to the upper limit they are with the thing buried inside Peter's body. Hmm, he should probably have some way to monitor that externally in the next iteration.

Peter shifts around on his knees, wriggling in discomfort. Tony rubs a hand down his flank to settle him.

“Pete, I'm sorry, okay, but I need actual words here. Tell me what you need.”

Peter makes another unhappy sound, and Tony scrambles to reverse the knot. Shit, _fuck_. He'd been so careful designing the thing to make sure it wouldn't expand beyond the normal range of an average alpha knot, but Peter was still young, this was only his third heat. Maybe the average alpha knot was too much for him.

Except as the artificial knot deflates Peter only seems to get more uncomfortable instead of less.

Tony gently coaxes Peter over onto his back so he can see the kid's face.

Peter blinks up at him through wet eyelashes. His normally pink lips are bitten red.

Tony cups his hand under Peter's jaw. “C'mon, talk to me.”

“I need more,” Peter says, his eyes dropping from Tony's face down to Tony's crotch. Peter reaches out, hand clumsily pawing at Tony's fly. “I need - ”

Tony gently grabs his wrist, guiding it away.

“I know, honey. I know. But you know I can't knot you. Biology's not working in our favor here.”

“Don't care.”

Peter's hand is back at Tony's fly, and the kid is too strong and too single-minded to be dissuaded this time. He manages to get the zipper down before Tony has even processed what's happening. Then Peter stops.

“Please?” he asks.

As if Tony is going to say no, even knowing as he does how terrible an idea this is.

“Okay. Yeah, okay.”

Tony shucks his jeans and boxers, and his t-shirt too when Peter frowns at it being left on. He rolls over onto his back, pulling Peter on top of him.

He may not be able to give Peter a real knot, but at the very least he can let Peter fuck himself as deep as he wants. Peter seems on board with the idea. Very on board, actually, since he's just barely swung his leg over Tony's hips before he's sinking down on Tony's cock.

Tony's cock slips inside all too easily. Peter's already dripping with slick and fucked open from the toy, so it's not like it takes much – Tony thinks for a moment he might actually be able to hold out long enough to not embarrass himself, but then Peter bears down on his dick and Tony thinks he actually sees stars.

Peter fucks him; his thighs clenched on either side of Tony's hips, his head tipped back so Tony can see the long line of his throat, the sinuous ripple every time he takes gulps for air. It isn't long before Tony is shooting his load, the slick slide of his cock inside Peter becoming somehow even slicker and messier with each desperate pump of Peter's hips.

Peter stops with Tony fully buried inside of him, clenching down as if he can coax Tony to knot through sheer force of will.

“Hey,” Tony says, reaching up to trail his hands over Peter's chest and stomach, then settling them on either side of his waist. He tries to pull Peter forward. “C'mon, come here.”

Peter's chin tips down, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“You gotta let me pull out, Pete,” Tony tries.

“No - don't.”

If Tony bends his wrist at a near-impossible angle, he can just manage to work two fingers in alongside his cock. Peter moans at the intrusion, but Tony pulls his fingers out and Peter's eyes pop open in response, looking somewhat adorably put out.

Tony tugs at Peter's waist with his other hand. “Come on. I can't get my fist in with you up there.”

That seems to finally click in Peter's mind, and he rolls off of Tony and down to the mattress, grabbing Tony's hand as he goes and pulling it towards his ass as he goes, as if he doesn't trust Tony to get there fast enough on his own. Tony scoots down on the bed a bit so the angle is more workable, then he pinches his fingers together and pushes them in as one, slow and steady, until his entire fist is buried inside Peter up to the wrist. Peter lets out a deep sigh, and Tony can actually see the tension leaving his muscles.

Tony can't help the wave of sentimental affection that sweeps over him, pressing a quick kiss to the flat planes of Peter's stomach.

“Better?” Tony asks.

Peter has his eyes closed again, but his smile is a mile wide. "Yeah,” he answers.

Tony isn't sure how far he should push things, but Peter's cock is right there, laying soft against his thigh. Just inches away from Tony's mouth, the head still glistening wet with come. Tony leans a little further down and presses a kiss along the shaft, and then when Peter doesn't object, he presses his lips right to the tip, tonguing at the slit. Peter cants his hips forwards and gasps in response.

Tony backs off slightly, licking his lips.

“Sensitive?”

“Yeah,” Peter breathes out. But then, “Don't stop.”

Tony can work with that. He sucks the head of Peter's cock into his mouth, laving his tongue along the underside, and clenches and relaxes his other hand at the same time. Peter bucks off his hips off of the bed, but Tony is prepared for it, backing off just in time.

Tony looks up.

“Can you stay still for me?”

Peter nods, eyes wide open now and expression almost painfully earnest.

“Good boy,” Tony says and _oh_, Peter definitely liked that, if the way his cock twitches in response is anything to go by. Tony files that knowledge away for later and leans in, swallowing Peter down to the root.

Peter cries out loud enough enough that Tony briefly wonders if even the upgraded sound dampening in his quarters is up to the task, but Peter keeps his word – his hips stay glued to the mattress, every muscle in his stomach and thighs visibly straining to keep it that way.

When Peter comes, it's barely more than a dribble this time. His entire body goes slack under Tony, his inner walls twitching around Tony's hand once or twice before relaxing as well. Tony licks the last traces of come from the tip of Peter's cock before slowly, gently pulling his hand out of Peter's body. He grabs the toy from earlier and presses it back inside, expanding the knot when he notices the way Peter's brow wrinkles unhappily at the emptiness.

Peter is a mess. There's a mix of come and omega slick drying between his legs, slick running down his thighs, and his stomach is smeared with come. The rest of him is glistening with sweat, goosebumps rising on his skin, nipples perking up into little nubs as his body temp begins to come back down to normal.

Tony washes his hands, then dampens a washcloth and wipes Peter down as best he can. Peter mumbles irritably when Tony rolls him over to get the ruined flat sheet out from underneath him and a fresh one put on the bed, but he doesn't actually wake up. The top sheet and comforter are still clean, having been kicked aside earlier. Tony pulls them off the floor and settles them over Peter.

Tony showers with the body jets on full blast to dull the ache in his back and neck, the steam cranked all the way up to maximum like he can sweat out the lingering sense-memories of sex.

When he steps out of the bathroom, he pauses.

Peter is sleeping peacefully. Tony should leave him alone to rest.

But then again, omega heats could be unpredictable, especially for one as young as Peter. Peter is dead to the world, anyway; he probably won't even notice if Tony stays, just for a little while. Just to catch a quick nap.

*

Tony wakes up to a nose poking into his shoulder, the mattress moving a little as Peter wriggles beside him.

“Um... Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, quietly enough that Tony isn't actually sure if Peter is trying to wake him up or not.

Tony cracks one eye open, wincing at what must be the early morning light. Peter's face is bright red, and he looks away as soon as Tony makes eye contact.

“Kid?”

“Can you – I need help. I can't feel how to...”

Tony frowns, trying to work out what the hell Peter is talking about, at least until he registers that Peter is twisted around under the comforter, a lump that must be his arm reaching around behind himself.

Tony pushes the covers down so he can see, and Peter buries his face in the pillow.

“Sorry,” Peter says miserably, the word muffled.

With the sheets out of the way, Tony can see Peter's fingers tracing over the end of the plug fruitlessly, and understanding dawns. He can't pull it out with the knot still expanded inside. _Fuck._ Tony hadn't meant to leave it inside him all night like that. He'd only meant to catch a couple minutes of sleep before heading back down to the lab.

“I got it,” Tony says.

He moves Peter's hand out of the way and flips the switch to deactivate the knot. After a few moments have passed to let the knot shrink down, he pulls the toy out completely, dropping it on the mattress. Peter looks slightly swollen, but hopefully unhurt.

Peter reaches down and tugs the comforter up over himself, and Tony belatedly realizes he may have been staring.

“You hungry?” he asks, to cover the lapse.

“Oh man, yeah. Starving.”

Tony pulls on clean clothes, back turned to give Peter some attempt at privacy while the kid grabs his boxers off the floor and pulls them on. When Tony turns back around, Peter is holding Tony's t-shirt from last night in one hand, eyebrows raised at Tony in question.

“There're clean ones in the second drawer down,” Tony offers. “Help yourself.”

Peter looks askance, and it occurs to Tony that the t-shirt not being clean may have been part of the point.

“But go ahead, if you want that one.”

As it turns out, Peter does.


	3. Chapter 3

“When you’re at a good stopping point with that, let me know. Something I want to show you,” Tony says.

Peter nods, not looking up from his terminal. He’s got his hands buried in a 3D map of a chemical structure, some new webbing thing he’s trying out but hasn’t explained yet. Tony is sure he’ll hear all about it when the kid is ready. Based on the way the kid has been obsessing over the project, it’s bound it be something pretty cool.

Tony has his own pretty cool thing to share, hence the request, although he wavers between anxiously yet eagerly awaiting Peter’s reaction.

Still, Peter’s next heat is something like two weeks out, and this particular little sleight of hand is something they probably need to talk about first. Plus, all the various omega development and heat resources FRIDAY has been able to track down and bullet point out have stressed the importance of communication well in advance of the heat cycle, which is something they’ve been failing at thus far and should at least make some token effort at correcting.

Peter wraps up what he’s working on in short order, blinking a bit owlishly as the holo-projection collapses and the room lights tick up a degree or two brighter to compensate.

Tony resists the urge to fidget with his newest toy by setting it down on the table directly in front of Peter. Peter regards it with a blank expression. 

“Um. That’s… what is that?”

“Let’s call it an advanced prosthesis.”

“For me?”

Tony winces. “Well, technically for me. If that’s something you’re interested in.”

Peter picks it up, turning it over in his hands. There isn’t much to see - the design is intentionally simple. At the moment, it looks like a thin, flexible, hollow tube.

“Sorry, Mr. Stark. I don’t, uh - ” Peter starts.

Tony assumes showing might work better than telling here, anyway, so he taps a button on his watch. At first, nothing much changes, but slowly the outer skin of the prosthesis starts to swell.

Peter almost drops it back on the table, gaping. 

“Oh my god.”

“Wanted to run it by you, see what you thought. If you think it’s something that would help, for next time.”

“Can we try it?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying,” Tony says. What the hell else did Peter think he was bringing it up for? Just a random conversation piece? 

“No, I mean now,” Peter clarifies, and suddenly Tony is the one who hasn’t been keeping up with the conversation.

Peter’s eyes are fixed on the toy. He licks his lips, a seemingly unconscious impulse, then tears his gaze away from the prosthesis to look up at Tony, who only then realizes he hasn’t replied.

“Can we?” Peter asks.

And Tony gives the only possible answer to that:

_Of course_.

*

It’s not until they get to the bedroom that it dawns on Tony that Peter has never had sex outside of his heats. Peter shifts from foot to foot, uncertain, still holding the knot prosthesis awkwardly in one hand. Tony takes it from him, tapping the control to deflate the knot and setting it on the end of the bed.

“We don’t have to,” Tony says.

Peter needing help to get through a heat was a biological imperative. This wasn’t. Even if Tony could clearly see the flush in Peter’s cheeks and the growing bulge in his pants.

“I want to. If - if you want to,” Peter is quick to answer. He glances back at the toy on the bed, swallowing. “Show me how it works?”

Peter’s face is flushed with embarrassment, but his hands are anything but shy when they reach for Tony’s fly, popping open the button and unzipping him without stopping to look up. Tony ducks down just far enough to press a kiss to Peter’s temple before reaching around to tug at the hem of Peter’s shirt until he gets the idea and lifts his arms, allowing Tony to pull it off of him. 

Tony’s shirt and pants are discarded in short order, as are Peter’s jeans. Peter whines as they press their bodies together, his cock pressed up against Tony’s thigh through the material of his boxers.

Peter yanks his boxers down off his hips, kicking them off as they stumble over to the bed. Tony takes full advantage of all the newly-exposed skin, clutching at Peter’s ass, then lifting him up and setting him down on the bed. Peter lands on his back with his knees bent, legs falling open. Tony reaches down between them, gratified to find that Peter is already wet. 

Not quite as wet as he usually is mid-heat, but getting there.

Tony rubs the pads of his fingers up and down over the tight furl of muscle, relishing the way Peter’s breath picks up in response. Peter is leaning back on his elbows, hands splayed out flat against the mattress on either side of him.

“Tony, _please_,” he begs.

Tony raises an eyebrow. _Tony_, huh? That’s new.

“You’re not in heat, kid. We can take our time. We should take our time.”

But Peter is already shaking his head.

“No, c’mon please. It’s fine. I’m fine, I’m ready.”

Tony presses one finger inside to test that theory. Peter rolls his hips down against Tony’s hand, allowing his finger to slip further inside. Peter is unbelievably tight - he usually is, but heat instincts normally cause his body to adjust almost instantly to any intrusion, relaxing enough to allow easy access and only clamping down if Tony has the audacity to try to pull out.

There’s no heat instincts driving him this time, his hole clenched around Tony’s finger so tightly it’s hard to even move.

“Pete, sweetheart, you gotta relax. It’s not gonna be as easy as you’re used to.”

“Don’t care.”

“Okay, but I do. If you clamp down like that on my dick the night’s gonna end on the couch with a bag of frozen peas and also possibly a pretty embarrassing doctor’s visit for the both of us.” 

That gets Peter’s attention, his eyes shooting open. “Seriously?”

Okay, no probably not really. But Tony has no desire for this to be rough on either of them.

“Not if you relax for me. You’ve gotta give me enough room to move.”

“Oh. Okay,” Peter breathes out.

Tony feels Peter’s inner walls twitch along the length of his finger, then gradually relax. They tighten up again the instant Tony tries to move, but Peter seems to get the hang of it; intentionally relaxing his body in a way that his heats usually render unnecessary through pure instinct.

When Tony can work two fingers inside without Peter clenching up around the intrusion, he deems that good enough, hitching his boxer briefs down to free his cock and reaching back to grab the prosthesis off the end of the bed.

Peter watches with rapt attention as Tony pulls the prosthesis on, the adaptive material of it adjusting to fit around his shaft. Peter reaches out to stroke the tips of his fingers along the material.

“Does it... feel weird?” Peter asks.

Tony shrugs. “Like wearing a broken condom, but less rubbery.”

“Oh.”

It occurs to Tony belatedly that Peter has probably never worn a condom, much less had one break on him. Something in Tony likes that. Likes that a whole lot, if he’s honest.

“You can try it out too, you know. Next time,” Tony offers, leaning down to nip at Peter’s lower lip.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

Tony takes it slow, pushing inside in one long, steady thrust that leaves Peter panting, his hands scrabbling fruitlessly against the mattress underneath him for purchase. He’s slightly disappointed at the way the prosthetic muffles the sensation of Peter’s smooth inner walls tensing and relaxing along his shaft, but it’s a sacrifice he’s more than willing to make given how excited Peter seems to be by the idea.

He crouches down to press an open mouthed kiss to the base of Peter’s throat; likes that he can feel Peter swallowing against his lips as he does.

Likes even more that Peter, unlike the times when they’ve done this mid-heat, is perfectly capable of speech.

“You good?” Tony asks.

“Oh my god, so good. I’m great. This is - yeah, this is good.”

Tony sets a steady pace, slower than what he’s used to doing with Peter and Peter, for his part, starts talking and basically never stops, not completely. Not even when he comes the first time, or the second.

His heels are digging into Tony’s back, his hands wandering between clutching down into the bedsheets and then up to grasp at Tony’s shoulders or wrap around the back of Tony’s neck. Peter pulls Tony down into a sloppy kiss, choosing that same moment to bear down on Tony’s cock and Tony sees stars, coming hard.

Tony buries his face down against Peter’s neck, Peter’s arms still wrapped loosely around the back of his neck.

“Ready?” Tony asks.

“Fuck. Yes. Yeah I’m good. Do it, _please_ \- ”

Tony maneuvers around just enough to tap out a command on his watch. 

On his end, nothing much changes. Peter is a different story entirely. His mouth falls open with a gasp, body tensing for the briefest second before going immediately and completely lax underneath him. Tony levers himself up just a bit more, braced on one elbow against the mattress, carding his hand through Peter’s hair.

“Talk to me, kid. I need version notes.”

Peter’s eyes are closed, but his face breaks out into a wide grin. Tony’s watch makes a faint buzz against his wrist, indicating that the prosthetic knot has reached full extension.

“No notes,” Peter mumbles, sounding half asleep. “You’re not allowed to pull out, like, ever.”

Tony laughs. “I’m gonna have to at some point.”

“Nope.”

“Well now you’ve convinced me.”

All joking aside, it’s not exactly the most comfortable position to maintain for more than a few minutes without moving. Tony isn’t actually sure how Peter can look so comfortable, since he’s still practically bent in half with his ankles crossed behind Tony’s back.

Tony attempts to shift up a bit further but finds Peter’s arms instantly locking in place above him.

“Just for a second, okay? Just so we can get a little more comfortable,” Tony says.

Peter sighs but he doesn’t object, and this time when Tony shifts back, Peter lets him.

He deflates the prosthetic knot and pulls out, then nudges Peter until the kid gets the hint to roll over onto his side. It takes a few strokes for Tony to get himself hard again before he can press back inside. Peter makes a vaguely happy noise, lazily rocking his hips backwards in response.

This time is slower, easier. Far less frantic. Tony briefly lets himself imagine waking up to this every morning; Peter stretched out asleep beside him, slick and open. 

In moments like these, Tony can almost understand all those famed alpha instincts. 

He doesn’t just want Peter, he wants to _keep_ Peter.

Keeping Peter means keeping him happy, in whatever ways Tony can dream up or invent, so Tony holds out as long as he can, fucking him slow and deep. He expands the knot again as he comes, and Peter goes completely limp next to him in response. It would be alarming, if Tony hadn’t felt nearly the exact same response from Peter before, mid-heat.

He wraps an arm around Peter’s midriff and allows himself to doze.  
  



End file.
